“Emmo Fittipaldi, aged 12, needed private tuition. Flying around the world, he was too busy to go to school”
Achievement can start early in sport, and nowadays thatʼs true of motor racing at the highest level. But it was not always thus. The top four placings in the 1950 Formula One World Championship were Farina (43 years old), Fangio (39), Fagioli (52) and Rosier (44). Fangio was 25 when he first raced on the dusty roads of rural Argentina in an old Ford taxi, and he didnʼt sit in a proper single-seater until he was 36. When he won his fifth world title he was 46.
By contrast, Max Verstappen was 17 when he took part in his first F1 Grand Prix. In 2016 he won the Spanish Grand Prix, aged 18 years and 228 days. By 24 he was World Champion.
Even more startling is the world of karting. Children can start driver training at six years old, with timed laps; some tracks allow five-year-olds. By seven they are racing properly. At 12 they can run in the Junior Max class, with a Rotax engine developing 23bhp and a top speed of around 75mph. At a very young age these kids become hard-charging racers, with rapidly developing track craft. Parents can get very competitive on their offspringʼs behalf, too, and paddock fisticuffs are not unknown.
At an international level, karting gets very serious indeed. Double World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi was telling me about his youngest son, Emmo, who at the age of 12 needed private tuition: constantly flying around the world to the next championship round, he was too busy to go to school.
As for full-size racing, the kids donʼt have to wait for their road licences any more. Formula Four is open to 15-year-olds, racing against adults in serious 1400cc Abarth-powered single-seaters. Even earlier, at 14, they can race in Ginetta Junior, in a 120mph G40 sports car with a 1.8-litre Ford Zetec engine. Nobody wanted to tell me what a full season of Ginetta Junior costs, but presumably a necessary part of the package is an indulgent, and rich, parent.
Not long ago I spent a day with a well-known and successful professional racing driver. During the afternoon his 15-year-old son came home from school and, after quickly dealing with his homework, shut himself in his bedroom, which was equipped with the latest in full-tech simulators. When I left he was still strapped in and clocking up hundreds of laps of Castle Combe, where a Ginetta Junior r
